Human Values Center celebrates 10 years
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Amy Gutmann (c) with students
at University Center for Human Values seminar
(Photo by Steve Freeman)
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The title of its anniversary volume may give readers a sense of the scope of activity undertaken by the University Center for Human Values in its first 10 years.
What Should We Value? compiles excerpts from lectures, papers and books by scholars and students associated with the center. The excerpts are grouped around such questions as "How should democracy recognize diversity?" "How should we value freedom?" "What is the relationship between law and morality?" and "How should we value life?" The contributors include Princeton faculty, visiting fellows and lecturers, and one undergraduate, Jilan Kamal '01, whose excerpted essay addresses the question "Can the self ever be free from all social influence?"
Founding director Amy Gutmann, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, takes pride in such questions and in the roster of scholars who have crossed disciplines to address them.
"Over a decade," she noted, "the work of the University Center has radiated out into all divisions of the University and, through our publications and events, into the public realm of educated discourse." Faculty from the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences have taught, contributed their writing, and participated in symposia and other events.
"People want to be part of this discussion," Gutmann said. "They want to participate in this search for greater moral and ethical understandings. We have not had to convince them that this is important. We just try to broaden the discussion, to give it depth."
The center treats "the whole academic lifespan," Gutmann said, beginning with freshman seminars and ranging through undergraduate courses cosponsored with other departments. Each year, over a quarter of Princeton undergraduates now take courses that the center either sponsors or cosponsors.
Among the center's other offerings are the following:
• the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellowship Program, which invites scholars and teachers to devote a year in residence at Princeton to research and discussion of ethics and human values;
• graduate Prize Fellowships, funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation;
• the Human Values Forum, which provides an informal environment for undergraduates and faculty to share ideas outside classes;
• the University Center Book Series, published by Princeton University Press (titles include a 1998 collection of essays, Freedom of Association, and J.M. Coetzee's 1999 The Lives of Animals);
• the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which are open to the public and feature distinguished speakers in two lectures with four commentaries;
• the James A. Moffett '29 Lectures in Ethics, which are open to the public and sponsored by the Program in Ethics and Public Affairs (itself cosponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School);
• the Program in Political Philosophy, which offers a regular faculty-student colloquium;
• the Program in Science, Technology and Ethics, dedicated to developing courses, seminars and lectures; and
• the Program in Law and Public Affairs, cosponsored with the Woodrow Wilson School and Politics Department.
New faculty positions
Looking forward, Gutmann is enthusiastic about the prospect of filling two new faculty positions, one in the area of law and public affairs and the other jointly with a department in the humanities. "We are eager to meet student demand for more courses," she said.
In addition, beginning next year, the center will host a distinguished visiting professor and increase its visiting fellows from six to nine.
In her essay introducing the anniversary volume, Gutmann offers a concise description of the center's approach: "Examining values in a spirit of open-minded and imaginative, careful and collaborative inquiry is what the University Center for Human Values is all about. In this spirit, we are committed to raising and responding to some of the most difficult moral and social challenges of our timeand all time. By emphasizing the provisional nature of our responses, we hope to encourage as many people as possible to join us in the ongoing endeavor of discerning the worth of what is humanly possible and the limits of what is morally defensible."
Princeton will celebrate the University Center's anniversary with a two-day symposium, "Questioning Values, Defending Values" on April 27 and 28. (See Gatherings, page 5.) The panel discussions, which are free and open to the public, will be broadcast live on Princeton's cable system (channel 7 on campus and RCN Channel A-11 in Princeton) and on www.princeton.edu/WebMedia. An invitation to the conference or more information can be obtained by e-mailing values@princeton.edu.
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